THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A SUPPLIER TO CONDUCT A CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY RECALL

The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (“CPA” or “the Act“) establishes certain rights applicable to all consumers when purchasing goods (and services) for their personal use. The Act sets out, amongst others, that consumers have the right to fair value, good quality and safety as well as an implied warranty of quality.

The implied warranty of quality warrants that the goods comply with the requirements of being of good quality, durable, and safe for the use as advertised or designed. Where goods are of inferior quality, unsafe or defective, the consumer may return the product and the supplier is obliged to repair, refund or replace the failed, defective or unsafe product.

Consumers have a further right to have goods monitored for safety and recalled when such goods or components of such goods are hazardous, unsafe or defective. The Consumer Product Safety Recall Guidelines (“Recall Guidelines“) have been drafted in terms of the CPA to provide further detail for such instances and set out the procedure to be followed where products are to be recalled.

Hazardous products

Whilst suppliers would take necessary steps to ensure that their product is manufactured or produced in line with the required design and/or material specification, the reality is that there may be some unforeseen occurrences where manufacturing/production lines may deviate from such design or material specifications. In such cases, a product may be identified as unsafe where it presents health or safety hazards to the public. However, in some instances, a consumer product may also be identified as unsafe to consumers irrespective of whether there was a manufacturing or production error. The deciding factor is whether the product poses health or safety hazards to the public.

The CPA doesn’t clearly unpack the term “hazard”, but generally, a supplier’s product may be identified as presenting health or safety hazard where such product has the potential to cause the following:

injury;

illness;

death;

loss of, or physical damage to, any property; or

any economic loss as a result of any of the above.

Product safety recalls

In terms of the CPA and the Recall Guidelines, a supplier is required to, among other things, conduct a consumer product safety recall where a product poses a health or safety hazard. In essence, a consumer product safety recall is a process whereby a supplier is required to remove all affected product(s) from production, supply chain and any point of sale. In terms of section 5(5) of the CPA, these Recall Guidelines apply to all goods supplied in South Africa, regardless of whether the transaction for the supply of such goods is subject to the CPA or not.

In 2012, the National Consumer Commission (“NCC“) published the Recall Guidelines detailing, among other things, procedural steps required to be followed by suppliers when conducting a product recall. In terms of the Recall Guidelines, a supplier may voluntarily initiate a safety recall. Where a supplier fails to voluntarily conduct a safety recall, the NCC may issue a written notice to the relevant supplier ordering it to conduct such safety recall.

Irrespective of whether a supplier voluntarily conducts the safety recall or is ordered to do so, a supplier is required to ensure that the procedural steps, as briefly set out below, are followed:

assess the risk;

cease distribution of the product;

notify the NCC;

notify consumers;

facilitate returns; and

facilitate returns.

In order to comply with the above mentioned procedural steps and to avoid any penal sanctions, a supplier may be required to prepare and put in place some form of a policy document(s) in anticipation of a product recall becoming necessary in the future.

Conclusion

Like with non-compliance with the provisions of the CPA in general, non-compliance with sections 60 and 61 of the CPA and the Recall Guidelines may have dire consequences. Suppliers may be declared to have engaged in prohibited conduct and an administrative fine of up to R1 million or 10% of its annual turn-over for the preceding financial year may be imposed.

Closely linked to the topic of safety recall, our next article on the CPA will be dealing with a discussion around the concept of “product liability”. For any further details on this topic, please do not hesitate to contact us.